Facebook Friends, Likes, Pokes Barack Obama

The Cliche: Cutesy Facebook-term inflected headlines and articles sprouted up all over the web today in response to yesterday's townhall with President Obama, including but not limited to the use of 'friends' as a verb, the word 'relationship,' any variations of 'poking,' and many others.

First Sighting: It's worth noting that this kind of punning in Facebook or Zuckerberg-centric news articles has been going on for quiteawhile. Like many strange creatures, it might be impossible to determine its true origin: what is clear however is that its spread into the very fabric of our daily headlines has reached a saturation point.

Seen Where: An embarrassment of riches to be sure! We ease into it Wednesday with Politico's "Are Barack Obama, Facebook getting too friendly?" a subtle reference, but a winking one nonetheless. Yesterday morning the Wall Street Journal headlined much passed around article "Facebook Seeking Friends in Beltway" about Facebook's potential to gain clout in Washington. And next up we have the Daily Intel's "Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama Are ‘in a Relationship’" one of the few examples where the rhetorical nod actually fleshed out the angle of the article as well. It's all downhill from here folks, particularly when the live Facebook action started. We have CBS ("Obama seeks friends at Facebook town hall"), CNN's coverage of the event (that came with this gem a few paragraphs in: "For Obama, Wednesday was a chance to connect with both Silicon Valley influencers and young people in one poke.") Time's "President Obama Gets the Facebook Pokey Pokey,"--by far the most bizarre of the bunch--RealClearPolitics, The San Francisco Chronicle, not onebut two Washington Postheadlines, the AFP, The Daily Beast, and yes, even us here at the Atlantic Wire. Even Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook felt compelled to offer this up before the live meeting: "Even though it’s Facebook, no poking the President."

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